Somebody Stop Me…

Because I’m just getting started! Making these small zip bags is so easy and so much fun that I can’t stop. Plus I was housebound for about a week as my husband and I both caught whatever cold is going around, and it really slowed me down. I saw the pouches first on Robbie’s Paw Prints and Creatology blogs. Both offered the link for the Shabby Fabrics how-to video. They make a perfect little gift for pretty much anyone as they can store sewing notions, pens and markers, art supplies, make up- you name it. And you can personalize them by using theme fabrics. I’ve got my eye on several more prints that I might want to use. One quilting friend and her husband raise Thoroughbred race horses, so the scenic fabric of horses coming down the stretch suits her. The other two are just lively colorful prints I thought would look good.





I found a source for zippers that I really like- the price is right, and the color choices are wide ranging. Zipit is an Etsy shop and along with my order of ten 14” zippers, they sent this cute little attachable zipper pull as a freebie. I might need more of these.  As you can see in the photo below, I’ve still got plenty of zippers to choose from. The hard part was selecting colors. I like how the top-stitch foot for the Bernina helps with a neat edge along the zipper tape. But I do have some things to learn still about boxing corners in these little bags. A couple were not as straight as they should have been. I’ll have more opportunities to practice though! 

Curiouser and Curiouser…

You might be wondering just what this might be. It’s a Curious Bundle, a fabric journal of sorts taught by Susie Lafond in her online class. As it turns out, I’ll sew just about anything I can get my hands on. So when I discovered Susie’s class, I had to sign up!




Making the bundle involves so many things I love- journal making, fabric scraps and selvages, sewing, and gathering bits and pieces together. Many of Susie’s projects make use of recycled jeans. I didn’t have any to part with so I purchased denim fabric instead. I also used many of the fabric scraps I got from Julie Sefton at Me and My Quilts. And a big bag of selvages also provided fodder. The rest of Julie's generous assortment is going into a string-rag quilt. I’ve always wanted to make one of those. How come other people’s scraps are always more interesting than my own? But I digress.




The bundle is long, so it’s hard to get a photo of it unrolled and open. But it unfolds along stitched spine lines to reveal “pages”, each with a sewn on pocket.  Part of the fun was to distress the denim to add interesting texture. You can slice, rip, tear, shred, and abrade your way through this step.  And once distressed, the denim is washed to get a delightful frayed look. The strings that came through with the wash were truly a tangle, but the results are worth it.



This one has a window cut out. Susie does a lot of “loose page journaling” so the pockets make good storage for those. I tend to make a lot of elements for journals, like doodled flowers, mandalas, and folded paper pieces. That’s what I’ll plan to keep in my Curious Bundle. Those elements are not easy to store and often get lost in the shuffle, so having them in one place will make handy when the time is right.





The inside of the bundle also has pockets, so there’s ample storage. I’m guessing it will be quite chunky by the time I fill it with papers and pages. I had bits and pieces of fabrics I’d printed, painted or drawn and they seemed like a good choice for the colorful interior. I must get on to stuffing those pockets! What’s even more fun is that Susie included has three projects in her online class, and this is just the first one. So there’s more stitching happiness to come and I’ve got plenty of scraps for it!